New Jersey Support Group

New Jersey Support Group

Newsletters - September 2005

September 26, 2005

As you know, we have a new website. As you can see, it is under construction. The remaining material printed on the site is what Angela, Jo Ann and Randi were able to salvage from the old one. So let us thank them for this. The new one should be easier to update, as it was not designed using Microsoft Front Page. We are trying to form a website committee, but until we do, National Treasurer Miranda Wright (Randi) will update the site (and hopefully will be able to teach me how to do so, now that I have CuteFTP 7 Pro).

There will be a short program at the October 1, 2005 meeting. Terri McCorkell of GRAANJ will give us an update on the progress toward state legislation barring discrimination against transgenders. We had hoped that electrologist Filomena Wagman would be able to speak, but we will have to wait until the January 7, 2006 for this. Next month’s program is still open.

We will hold the annual holiday banquet at 8:00 pm on December 3, 2005 at Diamond’s Riverside Restaurant, the site at which we have been holding holiday and spring banquets (or holiday banquets in spring) since December 2002, presumably familiar to all but new members. The board has developed the following two tier price arrangement. As promised earlier, prices will be subsidized-for members. Each paying member will be entitled to a subsidized price for herself/himself and one guest. Additional guests or non-members wishing to attend will be charged the full price. The entrees are Eggplant Parmigiana, subsidized price $20.00, full price $28.00; Stuffed Capon, subsidized price $22.00, full price $31.00; Broiled Flounder, subsidized price $23.00, full price $32.00; and Prime Rib, subsidized price, $26.00, full price $36.00. Full prices are rounded high, meaning that any part of a dollar is raised to the full dollar to defray required bartender costs. We need 25 diners to maintain banquet prices, otherwise we will have to pay a la carte prices.

Once we get the website up and running, I hope that we can post short pieces on a variety of topics, including cultural events. Right now, Doug Wright’s I am my own wife is playing at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia (on Broad Street right across from the Academy of Music; box office is 215-546-STAGE). The play concerns the famous East German gay transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (née Lothar Berfelde), famous for preserving Gründerzeit culture [Founders’ Era, when a great deal of German gay culture was developed]-and perhaps infamous as a Stasi agent. There will be a panel discussion on transgenderism following the matinee on October 2. (The panel-as I last heard about it-will consist of 4-5 transsexuals (1-2 FtM’s, an intersexual, and 2 MtF’s) and one MtF cross dresser.)

I should disclose that I have been a subscriber at the Wilma since 1984, a donor for almost as long. About once a year, the Wilma stages a drama using what I term cross acting or trans-acting, that us, using male actors to play female roles or vice versa. In some cases, the use of cross acting is specified by the author, such as Charles Ludlam’s The Mystery of Irma Vep, in others it is the Wilma’s decision of the Wilma, such as in Bertholt Brecht’s Happy End (Fly being played by a male). Some productions feature performers who specialize in cross acting, such as an actress who has made a career of playing boys. Some plays are directly transgender-relevant, like Red, depicting the conflict between a Chinese male opera diva in traditional Chinese opera and his Red Guard daughter during the Cultural Revolution, and the present production. It is time for the transgender community and the Wilma to cooperate more closely.

BY JENNIFER MAE BARNES